Sunday, December 14, 2008

Estimated average IQ of Presidential election voters, 1976-2004

I've increasinglycome to share Half Sigma's concern that the GOP's electorate has been steadily ceding the intelligence advantage it enjoys over Democrats.

The movement toward intellectual parity is not a novelty of the last Presidential election cycle or two. Setting the Wordsum average for whites to the equivalent of an IQ of 100, the average (mean, both cases) intelligence of voters in each Presidential election, extending back to 1976:

The sample sizes for "other" are too small to put much stake in (ranging from 10 to 25). To a lesser degree, the same is true for the third party candidates, although the trend is for outsiders to attract relatively intelligent supporters. That's not surprising, since merely seeking them out requires some degree of intellectual curiosity.

I don't think we should assume that having a low average voter IQ is inherently bad for a party. Clinton won two landslides while having an average voter IQ 4 points below his competitors. But it isn't inherently good either.

I see the declining Republican IQ as an unavoidable consequence of the increasing minority population of the US and the fact that the interests of minorities conflict most strongly with whites who are low on the income ladder rather than high. Also let's not forget that America's IQ as a whole is declining .. if my estimates are correct, our present-day toddlers will grow up to have an average IQ somewhere around 94, and IQ should continue to drop by about 1 point every decade for the foreseeable future. It would seem on the face of it that low-IQ is the way to go. Granted, though, that statement is useless without considering the rapidly changing racial profile of the US.

The Democratic party seems to be heading towards an alliance between unhappy minorities and well-off whites who are united in the belief that lower-class whites are generally lazy but lower-class minorities are merely victims of discrimination by lower-class whites.

This could mean that poor whites are doomed to become everybody's dumpster, and that a party with them as its base will have little room for growth. Or it could mean that the USA will turn into a nation of Alabamas, with 88% of the whites voting Republican and 90+% of the nonwhites voting Democratic. If there is even a modest flow of presently Dem-leaning whites back into the Republican party, it could hold back the Democrats' gains for quite a long time, perhaps long enough to allow differences of opinion to split apart the Democratic coalition. But it might not be possible for the Republicans to win a true majority of whites without adopting many party platform positions that are presently associated primarily with Democrats, such as a pro-choice abortion stance and whatever else happens to be the issue of the day. And that would be a sad day indeed, because it would mean that our parties had ceased to represent political ideologies and instead come to resemble the ethnic politics of the worst parts of the Third World, where party membership is little more than a synonym for ethnicity and only the "war of the wombs" can turn a party's political fortune around.

Multi-decadal leftist domination of the academy, the media, and popular culture tends to skew young people to the leftist end. Particularly since professors and most journalists (and producers) consider multiple points of view too difficult for the modern mind to sort out. Don't confuse the poor things.

Too, affirmative action is on a collision course with an entitlement-minded bunch of white elitists. As their (white elitists) population shrinks, and as the populations of the truly entitled affirmative action populations grow, and should the private sector economy continue to shrink -- there will be a lot of scrabbling in the scrum for a shrinking ball.

Stopped Clock, your analysis sounds pretty much right on, but I don't know how your point about falling IQs is compatible with the Flynn Effect. Can you cure my cognitive dissonance on this one? :)

As far as the low-IQ voter strategy, I'm just thinking a lot of the shifting in the above table has to do with who one the election. My thesis: the winner in a given year had a lower average voter IQ than the average for candidates of his party. I may even do the analysis myself....

In other words, people who vote for losers are as smart as people who vote for Republicans. :)

The smartest major-party voters around are those who voted for Dole in '96 and Ford (and Dole) in '76. Something about Dole attracts the smarties and drives everyone else away. (I think Adlai Stevenson made a similar quip about himself.)

Interesting note about Carter - the dimness of his voters didn't save him in '80. Both major parties got dumber between '76 and '80, probably because the smarties were running off to vote for Anderson.

Blode, what Stopped Clock may be too polite or fastidious to point out, is that the Flynn effect (whatever it may be) cannot compensate for demographic replacement of smart populations by dumber populations.

I'm concerned the things that are politically incorrect need the support of people with high IQs if that protective PC shield is to be broken.

Also, I've been meaning to tie your estimates of the upcoming generation's average IQ into what the GSS offers regarding birthing trends.

Re: the war of the wombs, when I start sputtering, I'll get right to that, I promise. At least I've been putting away for it for awhile...

AF,

But will the whiterpeople winners of that artificially shrinking merit pie try to reverse course at their own expense (albeit individual and short-sighted)?

Blode,

Interesting that the winners average slightly lower electoral intelligence than the winners do. The gap is small, and of course we're talking about a very limited sample, but I guess that's intuitive, given that moderates/independents are consistently shown to be less educated, less intelligent, and less affluent than partisans or conservatives/liberals are.

That's true, AE. I think there is a HUGE distinction to be drawn between independents and independents. Major-party voters who are undecided until the last minute are likely to be the dimmest around, while minor-party voters are likely to be the brightest around. The latter can be likened to folks who go to a fine restaurant with their absolute favorite entree in mind; the former are like folks who can't decide between the crispy tacos and soft tacos at Taco Bell.

Point is, in 2008 the Democrats won. I bet data from this election will represent a stop in the trend you've identified; Democratic winners have some of the dimmest voters around and Republican losers, some of the brightest.